In recent years a great interest in people's physical well being, generally described as the art of "physical fitness", has developed in the United States. During this time, the sight of people running has become very common on the streets, sidewalks and parks of the country.
The activity of regular running to improve one's cardiovascular system is normally referred to as the practice of "jogging".
Jogging has become particularly popular with that portion of the population between the ages of 20 and 40 in middle and upper income brackets. As a result of the popularity of jogging within this segment of the population, much jogging occurs in the late evening or, after darkness has fallen, because many joggers within the above noted segment of the population are regularly employed and can only jog during the hours before or after work. Thus, there are a number of joggers on the streets in the evening, early dawn, and pre-dawn hours.
Many joggers inhabit, and also jog in, suburban areas where publicly provided amenities such as street lights and sidwalks do not exist. Also, in many urban areas where sidewalks have fallen into disrepair, joggers prefer using the superior surfaces of the paved streets and roads rather than uneven broken sidewalks.
Since, as described above, joggers have come to populate the same streets and roads as traveled by automobiles, there has been an alarming, but not unexpected, increase in the number of vehicle-jogger collisions in the United States over the last few years. In the overwhelming majority of such collisions, the joggers are the parties severely damaged, and jogger fatalities due to being struck by automobiles have also risen dramatically.
In response to this, there is clearly a need for devices which will improve the visibility of joggers to drivers of motor vehicles under conditions of low ambient light. In response to this need, a number of devices have been developed in an attempt to render the jogger visible to drivers and to thus lower the probability of the jogger being struck by a motor vehicle.
One common device is a reflective vest worn on the torso of the jogger to reflect light from the headlamps of motor vehicles. This device has provided for improved safety, but is entirely dependent on the operation and proper alignment of the headlights of a motor vehicle in order to render the jogger visible to the driver. Thus, if the operator of the vehicle is, for example, intoxicated and has forgotton to turn on the headlamps, particularly in the early evening hours where the ambient light is very low, but complete darkness has not fallen, a reflective vest may not aid the jogger in improving his visibility to drivers. Furthermore, even though these vests tend to be lightweight and open at the sides, they do have the effect of retaining some heat around the body of the jogger which can increase the jogger's discomfort while jogging during the summer months. Further, since headlamps are typically aligned to shine in a downward direction, often the reflective vest is worn at a sufficiently high level off the ground so as to preclude reflection of headlamp light therefrom.
Also, active light-emitting devices have been developed and sold for attachment to the limbs of joggers. Some joggers use the familiar leg light used by bicyclists which consists of a self-contained battery pack, a lamp and reflector, and a strap for securing the device to the arm or leg of the wearer. Still more recently, a similarly arranged package including a flashing light, a dispersive lens, and a strap for attaching to the arm of the jogger has been created.
While such active devices are an improvement over passive devices, or may be used in combination therewith, they still have some drawbacks.
First and foremost is the fact that even with a dispersing lens, the angle from which such devices are visible, usually does not exceed 180.degree.. Thus, if the vehicle is approaching the jogger from a direction in which such a device is not visible, the driver may not see the jogger until it is too late. Of course this can be overcome by the wearing of multiple lamps but this approach adds extra weight to the jogger.
Furthermore, in order to adequately secure such devices to the arms and legs of joggers, they must be strapped around the appendage rather tightly in order to make sure that they do not come dislodged during jogging. This causes the jogger to make a trade-off between his or her comfort during jogging and the expediency of increasing his or her visibility to drivers of motor vehicles.
Additionally, there is sometimes the need for a jogger to be able to audibly signal a fellow jogger that the former jogger is about to pass the latter jogger so that the latter jogger may move aside to enable passing. Further, audible signals might be useful in repelling attackers or for other purposes.
Thus, there is a need within the field of jogging for a lightweight active light-emitting safety device which can be worn by a jogger or other person occupying the streets under conditions of low ambient light, which may be comfortably worn without unduly constricting the blood vessels of the wearer, and which radiates light so that the jogger will be visible from virtually any angle of approach by an oncoming vehicle. There is also a need for such a device including the additional structure of a controllable audible alarm device.
The following prior art is known to applicants: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,104,454, 3,871,170, 3,944,803, 4,161,018, 4,231,079, 4,264,845, 4,283,756 and 4,384,317.